Hi Everyone
As promised, I’m reporting back on my experience with Cotswold Cameras [CC] and my 80D.
David at CC was patient and polite through the many emails I sent before parting with my cash. Obviously trust is an issue, but having communicated with him (and having read his eBay feedback) I considered myself in good hands.
My order was processed on Monday 18th. I received a DHL tracking number, with which I was able to follow the movements of my camera from Hong Kong. It arrived on Thursday 21st at 9.30am.
The box contained camera, battery, charger (with UK lead), strap and a reprint of the manual. I downloaded the software from Canon’s website and registered the serial number without any hitches.
The camera is staggering, and (outside of my iPhone 6) is one of the most remarkable pieces of technology I’ve handled. Images are superb, though I have a feeling I may need to upgrade my lenses to STM, as the noise of focussing is noticeable in movies. (Actually, this is an excuse, I don’t shoot many movies !).
I have set the camera to overexpose by 1/3 stop and defined a set of User Picture Preferences to sharpen, as I think Canon JPEGS are a little soft out of the box. Since there is so much to explore, I haven’t shot in RAW (my usual mode) – to be honest there doesn’t seem much point with JPEG images this good.
I had one difficulty: connecting to wifi. Neither Canon’s manual nor the various online tutorials fully covered each of the steps required to connect to my iMac and iPhone. David sent me advice, and promised to have his tech support look into the issue on Monday, but I eventually managed to sort out what needed to be done (if anyone else has similar issues, let me know and I’ll post the steps I went through).
So to summarise: a superb camera. An excellent service from CC from beginning to end. And an unbeatable price.